


Stripped Down to the Bone

by silvertortoise



Series: Tumblr Prompts [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Amputation, Angst, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Medical Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 14:08:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1821175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvertortoise/pseuds/silvertortoise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last thing he sees before the bottom drops out of the world and he drops with it, is Steve’s face twisted in anguish, Steve’s hand stretched to the absolute limit to try and catch him.</p>
<p>Later, Bucky just wants to forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stripped Down to the Bone

**Author's Note:**

> a headcanon drabble written for Tumblr.

The last thing he sees before the bottom drops out of the world and he drops with it, it Steve’s face twisted in anguish, Steve’s hand stretched to the absolute limit to try and catch him.

Steve’s scream.

Then it feels like he’s floating, his own throat burning and he realizes that  _he’s_  screaming too, that he’s tumbling limb over limb and there’s no way this old earth is gonna stop from dragging him down into the icy pit.

He’d unconscious as soon as he slams into the wall of the chasm, bright pain arcing and ripping through his consciousness before his entire left side goes blindingly numb.

He’s already limp and unresponsive when he tumbles down the last few feet, legs bent at an unnatural angle, head lolling to the side.

 

\- - - - -

_Red._

_His lashes flutter and that’s all he can understand, a pain so intense that it registers as a color and he can hear an odd sound, a torn broken animal sound, and he has no idea that it is him that makes it._

_He’s moving, being dragged. His legs are licked with fire, even though his back is frozen with cold._

_Finally manages to get his eyes open. White. Red. He blinks, hears voices muffled as through a wall, throbbing in his ears and—_

_Fuck._

_There’s so much blood. It’s gone. His arm is gone. He can see the viscera, the snapped-off bone, the shredded flesh that drags over the snow, staining it crimson._

_Steve…_

_He hears himself let out that same awful, high-pitched whine of agony, and then everything goes black._

\- - - - -

The next time he attempts to open his eyes, he’s blinded by a white light, the ache of it settling in his head until he adjusts and manages a couple of blinks, trying to focus. Something touches him, something cold and unyielding that is pressed against his stomach, and when he attempts a weak movement of his legs, he finds that he can’t move them. Nor his right arm, nor his head, nor his…

At least his legs don’t hurt anymore.

Finally he’s blinked enough times to be able to focus to his left.

There’s a voice, speaking softly somewhere above him in a language he doesn’t understand, and then another, sharper - an order. A sigh. Bucky attempts to speak up, to say that he is awake, taking in a slow breath and managing a soft, hoarse sound.

He’s staring at the arm that isn’t there. Well, his shoulder and the very upper portion of his bicep is there, but below that it’s a mess. Gone. 

The quieter voice speaks again - there’s something in it, like anger, but then the sigh comes again and silence falls. The sharp voice says nothing, but he can feel them there.

There’s a loud buzzing sound that makes him attempt to jerk (but he’s so thoroughly restrained, that only the faintest twitch is possible) and a second later he’s watching a spinning saw appear out of nowhere and press into the shattered stump of the limb that is strapped down on his left.

_His brain doesn’t register anything until the metal strikes bone, tears through it, hacks it away until crimson streams across the table, until they have to fit another IV into his right arm to keep him from coding._

_The Russian doctors always call him “the American” after this._

_His screams and choked-off retches and pleas for them to stop, to kill him, are in English._

\- - - - -

He squeezes the doctor’s throat until he feels the windpipe give way. No, not exactly  _feel_ , so much as  _know._  He really can’t process the sensations coming from the gleaming metal, the whirring plates and sensors at the fingertips. It’s too much, sparking in his brain and he realizes a moment later, as the doctor slumps limply to the ground, that his own face is streaked with hot tears.

_"You will be the new fist of Hydra…_ ”

_"Wipe him._ _”_

\- - - - -

He recognizes the machine when it starts to lower over his head - he’d seen it half-built, or something like it, in the corner of Zola’s laboratory. His whole body locks up, eyes wide and red-rimmed as pure terror threatens to block out his consciousness entirely. There’s an aborted sob ringing in his ears, and he knows it’s his own.

_Steve._

There’s no one coming for him, no one, no one, no one, no—

What the machine does to him hurts more than anything he’d ever thought possible. He welcomes the blankness like death.


End file.
